By DON HUNTER, SEAN COCKERHAM and WESLEY LOYAnchorage Daily News
A legislative investigation has concluded that Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power in pushing for the firing of an Alaska state trooper who was once married to her sister, or by failing to prevent her husband Todd from doing so.
Branchflower's report contains four findings. The first concludes that Palin violated the state's executive branch ethics act, which says that "each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust."
Branchflower was investigating Palin's involvement in an effort to get state trooper Mike Wooten fired. Wooten was involved in a nasty divorce from Palin's sister. Palin and her husband, Todd, have accused Wooten of threatening Palin's father.
The investigation also looked into whether Palin dismissed public safety commissioner Walt Monegan because he resisted pressure to fire Wooten.
The report says Palin failed to reign in her husband's inappropriate efforts to use the governor's office to contact trooper employees in his attempts to have Wooten fired.
"Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda ... to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired," Branchflower's report says.
"Compliance with the code of ethics is not optional. It is an individual responsibility imposed by law, and any effort to benefit a personal interest through official action is a violation of that trust. ... The term ‘benefit' is very broadly defined, and includes anything that is to the person's advantage or personal self-interest."
In the second finding, Branchflower says Monegan's refusal to fire Wooten was not the sole reason for his dismissal but that it was a "contributing factor." Still, he said, Palin's firing of Monegan was "a proper and lawful exercise" of the governor's authority.
The third finding says a workers compensation claim filed by Wooten was handled appropriately. Number four concludes that the attorney general's office failed to comply with Branchflower's Aug. 6 request for information about the case in the form of e-mails.
Branchflower writes that his investigation did not take into account late-arriving statements from several administration officials who, on the advice of Attorney General Talis Colberg, resisted subpoenas. They agreed to provide written statements this week, however, after a state judge upheld the subpoenas. Information from those statements was provided to the Legislative Council separately.
In a five-page response issued Friday night, Palin's attorney, Thomas Van Flein, accuses Branchflower and Democratic Sen. Hollis French, who oversaw the investigation, of using the probe in a partisan attempt to "smear the governor by innuendo."
Van Flein says Branchflower's finding that Palin violated the ethics act is flawed because she received no monetary benefit from whatever actions she and her husband are accused of. He cited several prior ethics investigations.
"The common thread of all of these Ethics Act cases is money and the use of a government position to personally gain," Van Flein's statement says.
"Here, there is no accusation, no finding and no facts that money or financial gain to the Governor was involved in the decision to remove Monegan," the governor's attorney says. "There can be no ethics violations under these circumstances."
The McCain-Palin campaign also responded.
Because Branchflower's report does not recommend any particular penalty for Palin, it shows the investigation was outside the Legislature's authority, campaign Meghan Stapleton said.
"The Palins make no apologies for wanting to protect their family and the public interest by reporting to appropriate authorities the conduct of a threatening and abusive trooper," Stapleton said.
Stapleton and spokesman Ed O'Callaghan, a former New York prosecutor now working for the campaign in Alaska, have been meeting regularly with reporters in an effort to discredit the investigation.
The campaign also said Branchflower's finding that Palin broke state ethics laws is beyond the scope of the original investigation, which Stapleton and O'Callaghan said was to determine if she had a legitimate reason for firing Monegan.
In authorizing the investigation on July 28, the members of the legislative council voted "to investigate the circumstances and events surrounding the termination of former public safety commissioner Monegan, and potential abuses of power and/or improper actions by members of the executive branch."
The chairman of the Legislative Council, Sen. Kim Elton, D-Juneau, said he agreed with Branchflower's findings but wasn't ready to suggest there should be any consequences for the governor.
"We don't charge people, we don't try people as legislators," Elton said. Any further action or disciplinary measures, he said, would be up to Palin's executive branch, the attorney general or the state Personnel Board.
Sen. Gene Therriault, R-North Pole, said the report is flawed because Branchflower didn't take into account statements and other materials submitted earlier this week by Todd Palin and administration employees who earlier had resisted subpoenas.
Therriault said Todd Palin's written response indicates that Gov. Palin, at some point, urged her husband to drop his efforts against Wooten. That information goes to the heart of Branchflower's conclusion that the governor violated the ethics law, Therriault said.
Therriault said Branchflower was unable to consider those late-arriving materials "because we had this artificial deadline today."
"Why?" he continued. "Because we're in a political season."
Senate President Lyda Green said the report doesn't speak well for the governor.
"The problem with power is that people pay attention to it," the Wasilla Republican said. "And it's very easy to get beside yourself and use it in the wrong way.
"And we do have to leave personal business at home," she said.
Two other lawmakers said the governor and her husband's actions were understandable.
"Who is going to blame Todd Palin for protecting his family?" said Rep. John Coghill, R-North Pole. " Not me."
Another member of the Legislative Council, Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, said he thinks Branchflower's findings are wrong, and that Palin didn't violate the ethics act. "She and Todd Palin were trying to defend their family," Lynn said. "I think any normal person would do the same."
The release of Branchflower's 263-page report came after a unanimous vote of the 12-member Legislative Council, which authorized the inquiry last summer. The vote followed an all-day, closed-door meeting with Branchflower. Three members participated by telephone.
Branchflower also recommends the Legislature change the way complaints against peace officers such as troopers are handled. He says lawmakers should consider making it possible for people who file such complaints to get feedback about the status of their complaint and whatever action was taken about it.
The initial complaint against Wooten was filed by Gov. Palin's father, Chuck Heath, before she was elected governor in 2006. Branchflower says the inability of the family to get information about what was happening with the complaint was frustrating to them.
"I believe their frustration was real as was their skepticism about whether their complaints were being zealously investigated," Branchflower's report says. "The irony is that the complaints were taken very seriously, and a thorough investigation was underway. However, the law prevented the Troopers from giving them any feedback whatsoever."
The law should try to balance the need for confidentiality with a recognition that feedback to the filer of a complaint is also important, the report says.
Daily News reporter Kyle Hopkins also contributed to this report.
Posted October 10th, 2008 at 11:11am
<o:p>
Alaska Supreme Court justice Walter Carpeneti, right, questions attorneys during oral arguments before the Alaska Supreme Court in Anchorage, Alaska, Wednesday Oct. 8, 2008 on whether to shut down an abuse-of-power investigation into Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Justices Robert Eastaugh, center and Warren Matthews, listen. The state Supreme Court refused Thursday, Oct. 9, 2008 to halt the ethics investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin. (AP Photo/Al Grillo)<o:p>
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Sworn to secrecy, Alaska lawmakers have begun reviewing a lengthy and politically sensitive investigative report focusing on whether Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin abused her authority as governor.<o:p>
The first-term Alaska governor has been accused of firing a state commissioner to settle a family dispute. But the report is also expected to touch on whether Palin's husband meddled in state affairs and whether her administration inappropriately accessed employee medical records.<o:p>
The inquiry, approved by a legislative committee's bipartisan vote, began before Republican presidential nominee John McCain named Palin his running mate. Since then, the case has been dogged by accusations of political influence.<o:p>
The investigation focuses on her firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan. Monegan says Palin and her husband pressured him to fire Mike Wooten, a state trooper involved in a nasty divorce and custody dispute with the governor's sister. When Monegan resisted, he says, he was fired.<o:p>
Palin's critics say that shows she used her office to settle family affairs.<o:p>
"When you're the governor, you leave your household hat at home and you become governor," said state Senate President Lyda Green, a Republican who has frequently clashed with Palin.<o:p>
At their meeting Friday, lawmakers planned to vote to release the estimated 300-page report and some of the 1,000 or more pages of supporting documents. The 14-member legislative panel could recommend that the case be closed, that another committee continue to investigate, or that the matter be referred to criminal investigators.<o:p>
In an effort to head off the report, McCain campaign spokesman Taylor Griffin released the campaign's own version of events. That report, which Griffin said was written by campaign staffers, says the Legislature has taken a legitimate policy dispute between a governor and one of her commissioners, and portrayed it as something inappropriate.<o:p>
"The following document will prove Walt Monegan's dismissal was a result of his insubordination and budgetary clashes with Governor Palin and her administration," campaign officials wrote. "Trooper Wooten is a separate issue."<o:p>
Monegan had not seen the closely held report Thursday night and said he did not know what to expect.<o:p>
"I just hope that the truth is figured out," Monegan said in a telephone interview Thursday. "That the governor did want me to fire him, and I chose to not. You just can't walk up to someone and say, 'I fire you.' He didn't do anything under my watch to result in termination."<o:p>
The report is also expected to focus on Palin's husband, Todd, who had extraordinary access to the governor's office and her top aides. Todd acknowledges calling and meeting over the course of many months with numerous senior government officials about Wooten, whom he described as a dangerous and unstable man who had threatened his family.<o:p>
One of those meetings, Monegan said, occurred in the governor's office. Green said that raised questions of impropriety and that, ultimately, the governor is responsible.<o:p>
"He shouldn't be sitting in the governor's office and making phone calls if he's going to be pushing his agenda," she said. "Everything's on her."<o:p>
Steve Branchflower, a retired prosecutor hired by the Legislature, is also investigating whether anyone in the Palin administration pressured auditors to deny Wooten's disability claim. He had claimed he hurt his back moving a body bag, but Todd Palin later said he documented and took photos of Wooten riding a snowmobile that cast suspicion on his injury.<o:p>
Republican state Rep. John Coghill, a member of the committee, said he would try to keep the discussion focused on the what legislators set out to investigate: Monegan's firing.<o:p>
"It wasn't supposed to look into the whole administration team. It was supposed to look at the governor," he said before reading the report. "This is about the integrity of the legislative process."<o:p>
Palin's attorney, Thomas Van Flein, said he had not received a copy of the report. Over the past few days, Van Flein has released affidavits and other documents that Palin's husband and aides provided to investigators. That rankled some lawmakers but Van Flein said he wanted to make sure Branchflower's report didn't take anything out of context.<o:p>
"Whenever anyone writes their own report, they're filtering their data. And if you've already drawn your conclusion, you tend to filter it in a way to support that conclusion," he said.<o:p>
Palin's allies have accused the committee of having already drawn their conclusion. They cited comments by Democratic state Sen. Hollis French, who said the investigation could provide an "October surprise" for McCain. <o:p>
Well, Sen. Obama has finally picked his running-mate; and I never would have thunk it.
While I believe that Sen. Obama will be spending a bit of time defending and explaining offending remarks that Sen. Biden will probably be making; all in all, it was a very smart choice.(In my humble opinion.)
Sen. Obama is a very intelligent guy. Intelligent enough to recognize his own weaknesses and work to strengthen them. Sen. Biden may not have been the most popular choice, but he is a smart one.
Republicans are snarking about how Sen. Obama doesn't have enough Political experience to be President.So, he chose a running mate with even more experience than Sen. McCain.
Republicans have been whining that Sen. Obama doesn't have enough foreign policy experience.So, he chose a running mate with even more experience than Sen. McCain.
Sen. Obama isn't an old, white man.( Like the ones on dollar bills.)grin.Sen. Biden might very well make a lot of undecided voters finally decide to give Sen. Obama a chance.
While both Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden are good to great speakers; the similarities end there.Sen. Obama has tact and a way with words that inspires people and makes them hope again.Sen. Biden is a straight-shooter that isn't afraid to speak bluntly.
Sen. Obama has good ideas, the right attiude, thoughtfulness and diplomacy to lead this country.Sen. Biden has the experience and bluntness to not only help formulate these plans, but also to reach the voters that don't want pretty speeches. They just want the blunt truth.
While I realize that some voters will take this choice of running-mate as more of the same politics that we are trying to change; I disagree.
The best way to change anything is from the inside. Yes, Sen. Biden is an old hand at politics. Yes, Sen. Obama is the new guy on the block. But, put their strengths together and you have a very smart partnership for the American People.
Where one is hot-headed; the other is diplomatic and a thinker.Where one is considered naive; the other lost his naivete a long time ago.
Where one can inspire hope in the American People; the other can clarify for them the nitty-gritty details.Where one might not have the Political backers; the other one does.
Together, I think the Obama-Biden partnership is a force to be reckoned with!
Is McCain (Physically/Mentally) Fit To Lead?
Any way you measure it, McCain's performance in the Senate during the last year has been abysmal. He has missed 400 votes, far more than any other Senator (including Tim Johnson, who's recuperating from a brain hemorrhage). In May Ronald Hansen of the Arizona Republic referred to "his chronic absence in the Senate" as if the problem is well known in McCain's home state. Earlier this month he was the only Senator to skip the vote on the Medicare bill. At the time, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid publicly criticized McCain for his regular absences.Here are some numbers: LI>63% - How many votes in the Senate McCain has skipped during the 110th Congress (since January 2007). 96 - The number of Senate votes McCain has missed since his last recorded vote on April 8. 111 (Update: 132) - The number of days since McCain last attended a committee hearing (of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on April 9). 25% - How many full SASC hearings McCain has attended during the 110th Congress. 89% - How many full SASC hearings McCain has skipped since April 2007 (32 out of the last 36 hearings). 2007 - The last year in which McCain attended any Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee hearings or subcommittee hearings.The League of Conservation Voters noted in February that McCain has skipped every one of the 15 Senate votes on environmental issues that it deemed critical during this Congress.Read the whole thing here.
[Commenting on Congress not lifting the ban on offshore drilling before its recess] "The Congress, doing nothing, decided to go on a five-week recess," said McCain. "Congress should come back into session... and I'm willing to come off the campaign trail."
McCain said he would concentrate on getting more sleep when he can."If I put in three or four 18-hour, 20-hour days in a row, I'm not sharp. It's just a fact," the Republican senator from Arizona said. "I'm more sharp if I get a little rest."McCain said he feels best sleeping until 7:30 or 8 a.m., as opposed to his usual morning drill of rising at 5:30 or 6 a.m."It seems to help me to get up a little later in the morning," he said, joking, "Sorry to bother with that intimate detail."
But while the overall risks of behavioral and judgment effects due to Ambien may be low, sleep experts agree that in a high-importance role such as the presidency, proper planning is needed when considering its use."Ambien should only be taken when you have a window of seven to eight hours for sleep," Greenblatt said. "Your staff should know that you've taken the medication, and that you should not be involved in any decision-making during that time."[Dr. Peter A. Fotinakes, medical director of the St. Joseph Sleep Disorders Center] added that sleeping pills and other sedatives have been proven to be more potent in the elderly. In light of this, he said, "It may not be the best idea for the commander-in-chief to be under the influence when he or she may have to make a snap decision regarding national security in the middle of the night; Hillary's so-called telephone call at 3:00 a.m."
I am disappointed in Barack Obama right now. I never expected anything good about Sen. McCain, so not a big surprise that he is constantly using misleading truths and outright lies about Sen. Obama in his ads. But, I expected better from Sen. Obama. He strikes me as a "stand-up guy."
However, lately I have seen some new ads on television from Sen. Obama that disturb me. These ads use the same tactics that were so disgusting to me in Sen. McCain's ads!
Yes, I believe that Sen. McCain is basically clueless about most things. I believe he is too old and set in his ways to make a good President. I believe he doesn't have the right temperment or mentality to improve our economy or be the Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces. I believe that he would lead us in 4 more years of the same thing we are getting with George W. Bush.
I am not sure our Country would survive it and I am REALLY sure that he would not improve things!
Using dated(misleading) and partial quotes(misleading) of Sen. McCain is stooping to the same slimy politics-as-usual that Americans are SICK of!
I cannot argue that Sen. Obama is a straight-up-guy when he is using the same slimy tactics as Sen. McCain!
The American People DESERVE a President with Good Integrity! I have been keeping up with things at FactCheck.org and was not surprised to see a LOT more lies and false insinuations from the McCain camp than the Obama's!
But, the number of Sen. Obama's ads that are misleading are beginning to look a lot more even with Sen. McCain's lousy tactics. Frankly, it isn't even NECESSARY when Sen. McCain shows us almost daily how clueless and out-of-touch he is!
I see Sen. Obama as a very intelligent, patriotic and diplomatic man with a lot of personal integrity. I would like to continue to see him that way. But, I am having trouble doing that when Sen. Obama's ads take a page from Sen. McCain's slimy playbook.
I am disappointed and expect better from Sen. Obama. The American People DESERVE better from him!
update:
Sure! I should have been more specific anyway. The ad in particular that I am talking about is being run in Indiana. I have no idea if it is showing elsewhere or not.
It shows soundbytes of McCain stating different things. Namely, his quotes back in January talking about how the economy is doing great, unemployment being down, Americans being better off than they were, etc. Interspersed with that is soundbytes of regular folks talking about how worried they are about losing their homes, their jobs, etc.
McCain has since changed what he says about those things. Personally, I think one of his advisors drilled into him that he can't be seen as that out-of-touch.lol
My point being; McCain has been using misleads and downright lies in his attacking ads on Sen. Obama. You can go to factcheck.org to check it out for yourself. Using such old quotes(while ignoring his current ones) makes Sen. Obama look like he is trying to do the same thing.
Do me a favor; go to factcheck.org and count how many times McCain has used deceptive practicesin his Ads. Just a month ago; it was about 10-1 on the ads they checked out. With McCain being the 10, of course. But, Sen. Obama's ads are popping up more and more and I don't like that. Not to mention the fact that it makes Sen. Obama look slippery with the truth; and I don't think he is that way at all!
Hope that clarifies things.
As far as my being a Troll....whatever. Last I checked everyone is allowed their own opinions...and you are allowed yours too.
Have a great day, all!
http://myspace.com/judes_spot
http://heyjude.name
Jude Bourff
Obama Still Does Not Know His Place
By: Paul Jenkins
When Barack Obama started running for president, he was widely described as arrogant for daring to take on the Clintons after just two years in the Senate, despite the fact that polling at the time showed him to be the only threat to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.
Eighteen-months later, we are told by the McCain campaign and its traditional media parrots that Obama is at risk of looking "presumptuous" for his recent trip abroad, even as he has registered a small but significant bounce in the polls upon his return, presumably for doing what most of us expect of a presidential candidate.
The man who slayed Democratic royalty, who has raised more money than any political campaign in US history, drawn record-breaking crowds in the US and abroad, who has been ahead of John McCain since widespread general election polling began four months ago, this man is presumptuous for thinking he has a good shot at becoming president and should therefore get to know his potential counterparts and visit the sites of US military activity?
Most candidates Obama's age will be charged sooner or later with youthful conceit for taking on their elders, no matter how guilty those elders are of mismanaging the country. It happened to some extent to Bill Clinton, and surely to others before him. However, it is hard not to see in the ongoing attitude towards this presidential frontrunner, just three months before the election, something more uncomfortable that is not simply a matter of age, but one of race.
Throughout the primary there was a growing sense of disbelief in the Clinton camp that this young'un (older than Bill was in 1991 when he started running, mind you) really thought he had a shot at this. Bill, in particular, showed little patience for Obama's "fairy tale" campaign, eventually going ballistic because, in his own version of "some of my best friends are," he did not understand that even he, whose office is in Harlem, may be condescending towards African-Americans, and towards this African-American in particular. Perhaps more perniciously, some long-time African-American political and business leaders joined in with some of the worst stereotyping of the campaign, seemingly upset at the upstart who dared to go where most of them had not.
Now McCain is recycling some version of this superciliousness, heavily aided by a traditional media still so easily scared into thinking it is not tough enough on Obama. McCain can hardly hide his rage at this uppity kid who thinks he can hobnob with world leaders just as he does -- who thinks he has more judgment than a septuagenerian war-mongering former prisoner of war. And who sees no reason to wait his turn when barely 1 in 10 Americans think the country is on the right track, thanks to his elders' enlightened leadership. In a weird echo of the Clinton attacks, McCain smirks his way through one sarcastic comment after another, his face twisted in hatred and disbelief. Not only is Obama "presumptuous," he also "doesn't understand." It is never clear what Obama doesn't understand since he actually has not gotten his facts or, so far, his analysis wrong, as opposed to McCain whose errors in fact and in judgment are so numerous as to make one wonder where he has been for the past 20 years (poring over Cold War era reports on Czechoslovakia? Hanging out at the Iraq-Pakistan border? Plotting to bomb-bomb-bomb bomb-bomb Iran?). McCain is the most arrogant of Senators (not a light charge), yet even by his standards the tone he adopts towards Obama is so densely patronizing that here too it is hard to dismiss it as purely a matter of age gap. McCain's joke of an economic advisor, Carly Fiorina, is now also laying it on thick: she is glad that Obama is consulting with experts. This from the woman who nearly ran a Fortune 100 company into the ground and whose candidate knows so little about economic issues after three decades in Congress that Fiorina is reduced to repeating that McCain "has been understanding [economic issues] for months."
That Obama is actually able to listen to facts, absorb them and analyze them should be a good thing. We assume that those skills came in handy throughout his life, not least at Harvard, where he graduated near top of his law school class. This, of course, now makes him an elitist, as he would not be expected by the old DC guard to possess any such competence (charisma perhaps, analytical ability no.) Both McCain (894th out of 899 at Annapolis) and George W. Bush revel in their under-achieving school days, as if this made these scions of hyper-privilege any closer to real people. This tactic clearly succeeded well enough for Bush to be elected president twice, and McCain to be nominated once. But there is a sense that American voters may not be taken in again and that they may actually enjoy as president someone who isn't an inbred moron or a senile fratboy.
Obama's partner in elitism, his wife Michelle, is in extreme tongue-biting mode. This is a shame, but it is inevitable, as she too is under the kind of scrutiny that would make Cindy McCain's face melt back into some approximation of reality. It is widely understood that Obama is more deserving of close examination than McCain because she is more actively involved in her husband's campaign than Cindy is. This of course is a lie: McCain has campaigned extensively for her husband and, were it not for her family fortune and her private jet, he wouldn't even have come close to being nominated. The truth is that Obama is expected to play a certain role: strong, angry, overbearing, and every one of her statements is demeaningly parsed in that light. If every word uttered by McCain were analyzed and reported to fit the stereotype of the rich, spoilt, husband-stealing white woman that she is, all would be fair. But instead, we get adoring glances, little examination of her actual role and an occasional hiccup about Michelle Obama's lack of patriotism.
What angers John McCain and bemuses many traditional observers is how unflappable Barack Obama remains in public, no matter how condescending the attacks. There is little doubt that the thick skin he grew over decades came in handy as he started to run for president. The past 18 months surely were not the first time Obama was baited for being black, for being white, for being Muslim, or for not being from "here," and it must be fascinating, although not unexpected, for him to see these patronizing attitudes resurface at this stage of his life. For the rest of us, what is fascinating is to witness how these old-school mindsets are backfiring on those who hold them, making them look less wise, more prejudiced, less fit to lead and altogether completely unappealing. And to witness that in America in 2008, it is perhaps not a bad thing not to know your place.
Thursday 24 July 2008
by: Agence France-Presse
Barack Obama spoke in Berlin addressing a crowd estimated at over 200,000. (Photo: AP / Jae C. Hong)
Berlin - Barack Obama Thursday challenged a new generation of Americans and Europeans to tear down walls between estranged allies, races, and faiths in a soaring call for global unity at an unprecedented mass campaign rally in Berlin.
The Democratic White House candidate told tens of thousands of people near the footprint of the old Berlin Wall that humanity faced a perilous turning point, and it was time to build "a world that stands as one."
"The greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another," said Obama, who has scorched through US politics at lightning speed to challenge Republican John McCain for the White House in November's election.
Also see transcript of his speech below: "A World That Stands as One" •
The strikingly audacious speech, in a fevered atmosphere in Berlin's famed Tiergarten, took the White House race out of US borders in a way never seen before, and was designed to portray Obama as a leader with unique global appeal.
"The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand," he said, referring to festering divisions between Europe and the United States opened up by the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
"The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand," said Obama, in an address beamed live on US and German television channels and to viewers around the world.
"The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down," Obama said, drawing cheers and applause.
Obama's speech was a clear echo of former US president Ronald Reagan's call to then Soviet leader Mikhael Gorbachev in Berlin in 1987 to "tear down this wall," before the fall of Communism.
Despite its soaring cadences however, the speech was short on specifics. Obama's aides said he would not talk policy as that is the job of a president but his critics will likely slam him for empty rhetoric.
The Illinois senator rebuked both his country and Europe for blaming one another for strains in their relations, but took pains to insulate himself from critics back home who doubt his patriotism.
"I also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived, at great cost and great sacrifice, to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world."
"In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common," the 46-year-old first term senator said.
"In America, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of Europe's role in our security and our future. Both views miss the truth."
Obama, who has a narrow lead in most polls of the US race, but trails McCain when voters are asked who would be the most credible commander in chief, used Berlin's triumph over division and totalitarianism as a metaphor for the world he hoped to forge.
"People of the world - look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one," Obama said.
In a speech that risked being seen as presumptuous, considering Obama will not even face US voters for another three months, he warned of a world where partnership was not a choice but the only means of survival.
"We cannot afford to be divided. No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone," he said.
He promised America under his watch would be serious about tackling global warning, a huge concern in Europe and a cause of rifts between the continent and the United States during the Bush administration.
But he also signalled he would demand Europe live up to its side of the bargain, asking for more help in the struggle against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
"America cannot do this alone," Obama said.
"The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda, to develop their economy, and to help them rebuild their nation.
"We have too much at stake to turn back now."
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama (as prepared for delivery) "A World That Stands as One" July 24th, 2008 Berlin, Germany
Thank you to the citizens of Berlin and to the people of Germany. Let me thank Chancellor Merkel and Foreign Minister Steinmeier for welcoming me earlier today. Thank you Mayor Wowereit, the Berlin Senate, the police, and most of all thank you for this welcome.
I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before. Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen - a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.
I know that I don't look like the Americans who've previously spoken in this great city. The journey that led me here is improbable. My mother was born in the heartland of America, but my father grew up herding goats in Kenya. His father - my grandfather - was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.
At the height of the Cold War, my father decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world, that his yearning - his dream - required the freedom and opportunity promised by the West. And so he wrote letter after letter to universities all across America until somebody, somewhere answered his prayer for a better life.
That is why I'm here. And you are here because you too know that yearning. This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom. And you know that the only reason we stand here tonight is because men and women from both of our nations came together to work, and struggle, and sacrifice for that better life.
Ours is a partnership that truly began sixty years ago this summer, on the day when the first American plane touched down at Templehof.
On that day, much of this continent still lay in ruin. The rubble of this city had yet to be built into a wall. The Soviet shadow had swept across Eastern Europe, while in the West, America, Britain, and France took stock of their losses, and pondered how the world might be remade.
This is where the two sides met. And on the twenty-fourth of June, 1948, the Communists chose to blockade the western part of the city. They cut off food and supplies to more than two million Germans in an effort to extinguish the last flame of freedom in Berlin.
The size of our forces was no match for the much larger Soviet Army. And yet retreat would have allowed Communism to march across Europe. Where the last war had ended, another World War could have easily begun. All that stood in the way was Berlin.
And that's when the airlift began - when the largest and most unlikely rescue in history brought food and hope to the people of this city.
The odds were stacked against success. In the winter, a heavy fog filled the sky above, and many planes were forced to turn back without dropping off the needed supplies. The streets where we stand were filled with hungry families who had no comfort from the cold.
But in the darkest hours, the people of Berlin kept the flame of hope burning. The people of Berlin refused to give up. And on one fall day, hundreds of thousands of Berliners came here, to the Tiergarten, and heard the city's mayor implore the world not to give up on freedom. "There is only one possibility," he said. "For us to stand together united until this battle is won...The people of Berlin have spoken. We have done our duty, and we will keep on doing our duty. People of the world: now do your duty...People of the world, look at Berlin!"
People of the world - look at Berlin!
Look at Berlin, where Germans and Americans learned to work together and trust each other less than three years after facing each other on the field of battle.
Look at Berlin, where the determination of a people met the generosity of the Marshall Plan and created a German miracle; where a victory over tyranny gave rise to NATO, the greatest alliance ever formed to defend our common security.
Look at Berlin, where the bullet holes in the buildings and the somber stones and pillars near the Brandenburg Gate insist that we never forget our common humanity.
People of the world - look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.
Sixty years after the airlift, we are called upon again. History has led us to a new crossroad, with new promise and new peril. When you, the German people, tore down that wall - a wall that divided East and West; freedom and tyranny; fear and hope - walls came tumbling down around the world. From Kiev to Cape Town, prison camps were closed, and the doors of democracy were opened. Markets opened too, and the spread of information and technology reduced barriers to opportunity and prosperity. While the 20th century taught us that we share a common destiny, the 21st has revealed a world more intertwined than at any time in human history.
The fall of the Berlin Wall brought new hope. But that very closeness has given rise to new dangers - dangers that cannot be contained within the borders of a country or by the distance of an ocean.
The terrorists of September 11th plotted in Hamburg and trained in Kandahar and Karachi before killing thousands from all over the globe on American soil.
As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya.
Poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris. The poppies in Afghanistan become the heroin in Berlin. The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow. The genocide in Darfur shames the conscience of us all.
In this new world, such dangerous currents have swept along faster than our efforts to contain them. That is why we cannot afford to be divided. No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone. None of us can deny these threats, or escape responsibility in meeting them. Yet, in the absence of Soviet tanks and a terrible wall, it has become easy to forget this truth. And if we're honest with each other, we know that sometimes, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart, and forgotten our shared destiny.
In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common. In America, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of Europe's role in our security and our future. Both views miss the truth - that Europeans today are bearing new burdens and taking more responsibility in critical parts of the world; and that just as American bases built in the last century still help to defend the security of this continent, so does our country still sacrifice greatly for freedom around the globe.
Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more - not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.
That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.
The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.
We know they have fallen before. After centuries of strife, the people of Europe have formed a Union of promise and prosperity. Here, at the base of a column built to mark victory in war, we meet in the center of a Europe at peace. Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together; in the Balkans, where our Atlantic alliance ended wars and brought savage war criminals to justice; and in South Africa, where the struggle of a courageous people defeated apartheid.
So history reminds us that walls can be torn down. But the task is never easy. True partnership and true progress requires constant work and sustained sacrifice. They require sharing the burdens of development and diplomacy; of progress and peace. They require allies who will listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other.
That is why America cannot turn inward. That is why Europe cannot turn inward. America has no better partner than Europe. Now is the time to build new bridges across the globe as strong as the one that bound us across the Atlantic. Now is the time to join together, through constant cooperation, strong institutions, shared sacrifice, and a global commitment to progress, to meet the challenges of the 21st century. It was this spirit that led airlift planes to appear in the sky above our heads, and people to assemble where we stand today. And this is the moment when our nations - and all nations - must summon that spirit anew.
This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it. This threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it. If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union, we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York. If we could win a battle of ideas against the communists, we can stand with the vast majority of Muslims who reject the extremism that leads to hate instead of hope.
This is the moment when we must renew our resolve to rout the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan, and the traffickers who sell drugs on your streets. No one welcomes war. I recognize the enormous difficulties in Afghanistan. But my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO's first mission beyond Europe's borders is a success. For the people of Afghanistan, and for our shared security, the work must be done. America cannot do this alone. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, to develop their economy, and to help them rebuild their nation. We have too much at stake to turn back now.
This is the moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. The two superpowers that faced each other across the wall of this city came too close too often to destroying all we have built and all that we love. With that wall gone, we need not stand idly by and watch the further spread of the deadly atom. It is time to secure all loose nuclear materials; to stop the spread of nuclear weapons; and to reduce the arsenals from another era. This is the moment to begin the work of seeking the peace of a world without nuclear weapons.
This is the moment when every nation in Europe must have the chance to choose its own tomorrow free from the shadows of yesterday. In this century, we need a strong European Union that deepens the security and prosperity of this continent, while extending a hand abroad. In this century - in this city of all cities - we must reject the Cold War mind-set of the past, and resolve to work with Russia when we can, to stand up for our values when we must, and to seek a partnership that extends across this entire continent.
This is the moment when we must build on the wealth that open markets have created, and share its benefits more equitably. Trade has been a cornerstone of our growth and global development. But we will not be able to sustain this growth if it favors the few, and not the many. Together, we must forge trade that truly rewards the work that creates wealth, with meaningful protections for our people and our planet. This is the moment for trade that is free and fair for all.
This is the moment we must help answer the call for a new dawn in the Middle East. My country must stand with yours and with Europe in sending a direct message to Iran that it must abandon its nuclear ambitions. We must support the Lebanese who have marched and bled for democracy, and the Israelis and Palestinians who seek a secure and lasting peace. And despite past differences, this is the moment when the world should support the millions of Iraqis who seek to rebuild their lives, even as we pass responsibility to the Iraqi government and finally bring this war to a close.
This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands. Let us resolve that all nations - including my own - will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere. This is the moment to give our children back their future. This is the moment to stand as one.
And this is the moment when we must give hope to those left behind in a globalized world. We must remember that the Cold War born in this city was not a battle for land or treasure. Sixty years ago, the planes that flew over Berlin did not drop bombs; instead they delivered food, and coal, and candy to grateful children. And in that show of solidarity, those pilots won more than a military victory. They won hearts and minds; love and loyalty and trust - not just from the people in this city, but from all those who heard the story of what they did here.
Now the world will watch and remember what we do here - what we do with this moment. Will we extend our hand to the people in the forgotten corners of this world who yearn for lives marked by dignity and opportunity; by security and justice? Will we lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty, shelter the refugee in Chad, and banish the scourge of AIDS in our time?
Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words "never again" in Darfur?
Will we acknowledge that there is no more powerful example than the one each of our nations projects to the world? Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law? Will we welcome immigrants from different lands, and shun discrimination against those who don't look like us or worship like we do, and keep the promise of equality and opportunity for all of our people?
People of Berlin - people of the world - this is our moment. This is our time.
I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.
But I also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived - at great cost and great sacrifice - to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world. Our allegiance has never been to any particular tribe or kingdom - indeed, every language is spoken in our country; every culture has left its imprint on ours; every point of view is expressed in our public squares. What has always united us - what has always driven our people; what drew my father to America's shores - is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people: that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please.
These are the aspirations that joined the fates of all nations in this city. These aspirations are bigger than anything that drives us apart. It is because of these aspirations that the airlift began. It is because of these aspirations that all free people - everywhere - became citizens of Berlin. It is in pursuit of these aspirations that a new generation - our generation - must make our mark on the world.
People of Berlin - and people of the world - the scale of our challenge is great. The road ahead will be long. But I come before you to say that we are heirs to a struggle for freedom. We are a people of improbable hope. With an eye toward the future, with resolve in our hearts, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and remake the world once again.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a president who not only speaks well but writes beautifully. The link below shows his comment on visiting a holocaust museum in Germany. Please read it.
http://firedoglake.com/2008/07/24/an-eloquent-president/
More than race, more than ideology, more than the stupid rumors, I think the biggest barrier to people voting for Sen. Obama for President ... people who would vote for him in a heartbeat if all they saw was his party affiliation ... is that he's new. They don't know him. I think a lot of people need to feel a personal connection and familiarity to vote for someone. I don't feel that way. Although a more personal insight does help, I don't feel I need to relate personally to a candidate.
This past weekend I bought Sen. Obama's two books in audiobook format. I'm almost through "Dreams From My Father", and it's wonderful ... informative, moving, and funny. I wish there was a way to get his books ... hard copy or audio ... into the hands of masses of people who say they don't "know" Barack Obama, people who are "uneasy" about him. There is no way you can read or hear his books without being impressed with and attracted to his intelligence and wisdom.
So, how can we help more people to meet our candidate through his own words?
I would just like to congratulate Sen. Barack Obama on his victory in clinching the Democratic Presidential Nominee. It was a long hard fight but I knew Sen. Obama would be the victor in the competition. I have not seen a presidential hopeful that I am willing to support 100% like him. Sen. Obama has the most sensible solutions and plans to fix the problems that face America today. Because of his charisma, honesty, dignity, integrity and willingness to listen to the American people, he has earned my undivided attention and great respect. I have not seen the qualities, I see in Sen. Obama, in any other presidential hopefuls in any 2 of the elections I have been able to vote in since I have been the legal age to vote. I didn't used to get too involved in politics until I enlisted in the Air Force and even after that I didn't get too involved until now. Sen. Obama has drawn me closer to politics and has made me want to get more involved in his campaign for the White House. Being a disabled veteran is also another reason I support Sen. Obama. His record for his work for veterans is very impressive and gains my support even more.
All around I side with Sen. Obama on his outlooks and views with just about everything. There has been no other Presidential hopeful in this primary season that I agree with, or respect, more than Sen. Obama. There are a few issues I would like to discuss with Sen. Obama but I do support him 100%.
CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN!!! Go PRESIDENT Obama!!!
I would like to recommend Senator Barack Obama propose changes to the DNC for 2012. The reason I think it is important that these rule changes should come from Sen. Obama and they should come now is because if the rules where different he might not be the frontrunner, and, as frontrunner he should take the high road. Here is what I am proposing:
By Dan Calabrese
As Hillary Clinton came under increasing scrutiny for her story about facing sniper fire in Bosnia, one question that arose was whether she has engaged in a pattern of lying.
The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary’s history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther – and goes much deeper – than anyone realizes.
Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career.
Why?
“Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”
How could a 27-year-old House staff member do all that? She couldn’t do it by herself, but Zeifman said she was one of several individuals – including Marshall, special counsel John Doar and senior associate special counsel (and future Clinton White House Counsel) Bernard Nussbaum – who engaged in a seemingly implausible scheme to deny Richard Nixon the right to counsel during the investigation.
Why would they want to do that? Because, according to Zeifman, they feared putting Watergate break-in mastermind E. Howard Hunt on the stand to be cross-examined by counsel to the president. Hunt, Zeifman said, had the goods on nefarious activities in the Kennedy Administration that would have made Watergate look like a day at the beach – including Kennedy’s purported complicity in the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro.
The actions of Hillary and her cohorts went directly against the judgment of top Democrats, up to and including then-House Majority Leader Tip O’Neill, that Nixon clearly had the right to counsel. Zeifman says that Hillary, along with Marshall, Nussbaum and Doar, was determined to gain enough votes on the Judiciary Committee to change House rules and deny counsel to Nixon. And in order to pull this off, Zeifman says Hillary wrote a fraudulent legal brief, and confiscated public documents to hide her deception.
The brief involved precedent for representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding. When Hillary endeavored to write a legal brief arguing there is no right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding, Zeifman says, he told Hillary about the case of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who faced an impeachment attempt in 1970.
“As soon as the impeachment resolutions were introduced by (then-House Minority Leader Gerald) Ford, and they were referred to the House Judiciary Committee, the first thing Douglas did was hire himself a lawyer,” Zeifman said.
The Judiciary Committee allowed Douglas to keep counsel, thus establishing the precedent. Zeifman says he told Hillary that all the documents establishing this fact were in the Judiciary Committee’s public files. So what did Hillary do?
“Hillary then removed all the Douglas files to the offices where she was located, which at that time was secured and inaccessible to the public,” Zeifman said. Hillary then proceeded to write a legal brief arguing there was no precedent for the right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding – as if the Douglas case had never occurred.
The brief was so fraudulent and ridiculous, Zeifman believes Hillary would have been disbarred if she had submitted it to a judge.
Zeifman says that if Hillary, Marshall, Nussbaum and Doar had succeeded, members of the House Judiciary Committee would have also been denied the right to cross-examine witnesses, and denied the opportunity to even participate in the drafting of articles of impeachment against Nixon.
Of course, Nixon’s resignation rendered the entire issue moot, ending Hillary’s career on the Judiciary Committee staff in a most undistinguished manner. Zeifman says he was urged by top committee members to keep a diary of everything that was happening. He did so, and still has the diary if anyone wants to check the veracity of his story. Certainly, he could not have known in 1974 that diary entries about a young lawyer named Hillary Rodman would be of interest to anyone 34 years later.
But they show that the pattern of lies, deceit, fabrications and unethical behavior was established long ago – long before the Bosnia lie, and indeed, even before cattle futures, Travelgate and Whitewater – for the woman who is still asking us to make her president of the United States.
Source: NorthStar Writers Group
[“Along The Color Line”, written by Manning Marable, PhD and distributed by.BlackCommentator.com, is a public educational and information service dedicated to fostering political dialogue and discussion, inspired by the great tradition for political event columns written by W. E. B. Du Bois nearly a century ago. Re-prints are permitted by any Black-owned or Black-oriented publications (print or electronic) without charge as long as they are printed in their entirety including this paragraph and, for electronic media, a link to http://www.BlackCommentator.com.]
A white administrator from another local university, a woman, who I had always judged to be fairly conservative and probably a Republican, had attended my lecture and was walking along with me to go to the subway. She told me that my lecture about the “prison industrial complex” had been a real “eye opener.” The fact that two million Americans were imprisoned, she expressed, was a “real scandal.”
Then this college administrator blurted out, in a hurried manner, “You know, my son is also in prison … a victim of the drug laws.”
In a split second, I had to make a hard decision: whether to engage this white conservative administrator in a serious conversation about America’s gulags and political economy of mass incarceration that had collaterally ensnared her son, or to pretend that I had not heard her last sentence, and to continue our conversation as if she had said nothing at all. Perhaps this is a sign of generational weakness on my part, but the overwhelming feeling I had at that precise moment was that, one day, the white administrator would deeply regret revealing such an intimate secret with a black person. I might tell the entire world about it. Instead of proceeding on the basis of mutual trust and common ground, transcending the boundaries of color, it would be better to ignore what was said in haste.
Among the remaining Democratic presidential candidates, former Senator John Edwards (albeit with a “suspended” campaign) has been consistently the most progressive on most policy issues, in my view. On issues such as health care and poverty, Edwards has been clearly to the left of both Obama and Hillary Clinton. But since Edwards probably cannot win the Democratic nomination the real choice is between Clinton and Obama.
Obama’s seven years in the Illinois State Senate, according to the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof, show that “he scored significant achievements there: a law to videotape police interrogations in capital cases; an earned income tax credit to fight poverty; an expansion of early childhood education.” To be perfectly honest, there are some public policy issues where I sharply disagree with Obama, such as health care. Obama’s approach is not to use “mandates” to force millions of healthy twenty-somethings into the national health insurance pool. He claims that you won’t need mandates, just lower the price of private health insurance and young adults will buy it on their own. Obama’s children are still small, so maybe he can be excused for such an irrational argument. Obama’s reluctance to embrace health mandates is about his desire to appeal to “centrists” and moderate Republicans.
So I return to the white college administrator whose son is in prison on drug charges. I made a mistake. People of color must break through the mental racial barricades that divide America into parallel racial universes. We need to mobilize and support the election of Barack Obama not only because he is progressive and fully qualified to be president, but also because only his campaign can force all Americans to overcome the centuries-old silences about race that still create a deep chasm across this nation’s democratic life. In the end, we must force our fellow citizens who happen to be white, to come to terms with their own whiteness, their guilt and fears about America’s terrible racial past.
If there is any hope for meaningful change inside U.S. electoral system in the future, it lies with progressive leaders like Barack Obama. If we can dare to dream politically, let us dream of the world as it should be.
